I was running into a new set of problems at every turn. I had thought that coming up with a way to kill something that I had created would be the only challenge, but I was quickly proven wrong.

On top of figuring out what kind of horror I had accidentally created, I now had to find a way into a sold out stadium. It seemed that even though I didn’t particularly like the sport there were plenty of diehard fans of the Vomit Vipers. How uplifting!

Then I had to make sure Kali didn’t decide to simply try to kill everything.

“Why can’t we just blow our way in?” Kali whined beside me. Her childish actions juxtaposed the rather terrifying connotation of her actions.

“Because we’re trying to limit civilian casualties.” I explained, never having thought that those words would ever come out of my mouth.

Doldrum’s monotonous clicks echoed behind me. “The loss of several thousands is inconsequential to the loss of an entire Reality. You need to start looking at the bigger picture.”

“That’s…” I drifted off, realizing that I was trying to argue with a being that was measuring loss on the planetary scale. Would I become like that? My head ached from even beginning to think like that. “And why aren’t you helping Kali and I?”

“My body is much harder to replace; metal is much more precious than organics.” He admitted before pointing a finger at Kali. “Besides, Kali is much more useful in terms of offensive and defensive abilities. Some of us are much better at certain things than the rest.”

“Huh,” I frowned. “I thought you guys were all powerful…”

Kali giggled. “Nope, unless you’re one of The Four, you’re kinda stuck being really good at one thing and pretty sucky at the rest.”

“The Four? What kind of childish name is that?” I asked. I had been getting comfortable around their unaggressive behaviors.

“A name that seemed less childish when there wasn’t even a child to base the word off of.” Doldrum commented, gears ticking in a form of disappointment. “Also, I would recommend keeping comments about The Four to a minimum. Some of our race view them as deities, and, after witnessing one in action, I wouldn’t put them far off from that title.”

“Right, um,” I swallowed a lump of stale saliva while looking up, hoping that I haven’t been put on the ‘To Smite Later’ list. “I’m sorry. L, let’s get back to the thing that’s killing me, okay.”

“Okay!” Kali cheered.

“Agreed.” Doldrum not quite clicked. Hummed, maybe? The machine equivalent, at least.

“Plans, ideas, abilities what do you guys have? Let’s work from there.” I started.

“We wait for it to eat, then blow the place up!” Kali supplied in her usual peppy attitude.

I sighed, sort of expecting this result. “Any plans that don’t involve severe collateral damage?”

“If you truly want to cause the least damage, then it would be better to intercept it before it reaches this Football stadium. You can find a good spot to oversee the place, and Kali can run to wherever it comes from. The only problem I’m seeing is that there isn’t that much nearby material for Kali to work with.” Doldrum said.

“Can’t she,” I waved my hand around. “You know, make something like another railgun and blast it to bits?”

“Ah, Kali is not a Creator like you. She is a Manipulator.” Doldrum explained, pointing towards the floating, steaming chicken that roved around the purple haired midget.

I breathed slowly through my nose. “I’m guessing that means exactly what it is.”

“Our race is fond of simple things. She can only work with whatever is within her range.” He gave a gear filled smile.

“Okay, okay,” I said slowly. “How about support? Can we beam a message or something to someone else, asking for help?”

Doldrum shook his head. “Many of us have other things to do, and those that are free would not like to intrude on someone else’s Reality. It is considered bad manners even if their sibling is in dire need of help.”

“Then why are you guys here?” I frowned, letting more anger spill into my words than I thought.

“One of the Four has a particular dislike for Sinners in general. They find the Sinners, and someone from our race is sent to take care of it. You being here was just a happy coincidence.” Doldrum said.

I paused as technically I had created that Sinner according to Doldrums earlier words. Would this mean I am going to find a godlike being angry at me? I shivered at the thought.

“Okay, okay… no extra help it is then.” I stumbled over my words, flinching as something suddenly crunched harshly nearby.

My eyes roved over towards my little metal box of horror, and found something that was neither comforting or displeasing. The creature’s scissor like jaws had bored into my fridge with staggering ease. Stainless steel and cured plastic seemed to part in the path of the blades that served as its mouth. Happy crunches were all I heard from the metal monstrosity.

It was eating my fridge, I realized. It was eating my fridge, and I found it absolutely adorable. The thing even made small barks like a dog, but more metal and filled with an unhealthy amount of needles.

The cute, metal horror turned towards me, pieces of my fridge stuck in its jaws, and yipped something between a distinct structural failure and a gunshot. I cooed at it as it skittered over to me on thousands of tiny legs. A particularly large piece of steel was presented to me like a well earned trophy.

“I think I’ll call you Snapper.” I said as I rubbed the flat top of the beast. It preened in contentment.

Then a light bulb lit up.

“Kali what would you say your range is for your abilities?” I asked.

“Huh? I guess I can push my Cube to about three of those buildings from earlier, but your Reality is unusually resilient.” She admitted easily. Just another thing to note that my new family or whatever is not as all powerful as I first thought.

I thought back to a gigantic floating railgun, and decided I was underestimating them again. Right, they’re still powerful as all hell.

“I have some old walkie talkies.” I announced and proceeded to pull them out of a cabinet. “And I have a plan.”

Doldrum and Kali leaned in further as I explained.

Then Kali laughed in excitement.

~•¥•~

It was disturbingly easy to pass through security with a living piece of metal attached to my back. I knew how bad some security guards were at their jobs, but with Kali actively sabotaging their metal detectors and ticket scanners I would’ve expected one to at least notice that my ticket was clearly fake. Hell, one guy even saw that their equipment was malfunctioning, and just shrugged it off.

I would definitely write a complaint about safety some other time.

Kali and I split off at the entrance as she went to scout the nearby areas, and I slowly moved through the chattering crowds. There were faces that I recognized and some that reminded me why I never liked going to games. Still, I pulled up the large hoodie I wore, and pushed my sunglasses further onto my face.

Sure this getup made me look a little suspicious, but I needed to look like something suspicious was going on. I pulled out my walkie talkie as I found a free corner that was covered by quite a few people in the crowd. You’d be surprised how inattentive people are.

“Kali, have you found anything?” I into my device.

It buzzed back. “Nope! I can’t feel anything through my Cube either, so it’s probably not coming yet.”

“Okay, keep me informed.” I sighed, wondering where a huge monster like the one I had seen before could be hiding.

There was no reports of a monster on the news, and I was seeing a lack of actual sightings, too. I was beginning to grow worried that it had actually skipped town instead of staying for the snack that Doldrum and Kali had been sure it would go for.

I slapped my cheeks as I realized that worrying about it wouldn’t be that good. There was a job I needed to do, and something was slowly killing me, I had no room for more worries at the moment.

Striding through the interior of the stadium I quickly found myself rather lost. I checked back to one of the maps that had been posted to the wall, and frowned as I found myself in the opposite direction that I needed to be.

“Do you need help?” I melodious voice spoke from behind me.

I froze, recognizing that tone. I didn’t dare to turn around as I already knew who was behind me.

“Why don’t you turn around, Cade. I know it’s you under all that. I could’ve sworn that Cole said you wouldn’t make it; did you finally come to support him?” Feminine tones rang out behind me, and I felt sweat begin to gather on my brow. I still didn’t turn to face her. Not with what I was about to do.

Just my luck that my walkie talkie began to buzz. “Hey, hey, are you in position yet? I’m in the air, trying to see if I can catch it on the prowl. Do you think you gave it some stealthing or something?”

“Cade,” the voice behind me was growing more stern. “What is going on?”

Snapper yipped from within my hoodie. I sighed as the painful screeches of nails on chalkboard came from my little creation. Why wasn’t anything going my way?

“Cade…” I finally turned to see bright green eyes staring at me. Short cut, brown curls flowed just above their slender shoulders, and framed a slightly egg shaped face. Freckles and plump lips were strained into a frown. Their lean figure was turned towards me, aggression clear in their stance. “What was that?” She finally asked.

“H, hey Courtney.” I stammered. “Funny meeting you here, huh.”

“Cade, stop trying to evade the subject. I know you’re hiding something; I wouldn’t be the school’s reporter if I couldn’t see something as amateur as your attempts to hide it.” Courtney bragged, eyes narrowing the next second. “Are you being threatened?”

“What? No! No, I’m fine. That was just… uh,” quick think of something! “Gas!”

I held back the urge to slap myself.

“Gas?” Courtney echoed. “That was gas?”

I nodded, resigning myself to my lie. “Yes, it’s… I’ve changed my diet. I don’t think it’s going well.”

“Uh-huh, right.” The brunette drew out the word to an uncomfortably long second. “What’s actually going on, Cade?”

I frowned, sighed then began pacing a little. Looking around I found no one nearby except for the slowly growing annoyed Courtney. “Okay, okay, I have… No, do you, uh, trust me?”

Courtney raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Cade, I’ve known you since the beginning of High School, just tell me.”

“Right, right, um, how do I explain this?” I muttered, pulling out my walkie talkie. “Hey, Kali, can I tell people about this? You know, like what’s going on.”

“Huh? Why not? They’re just bait, after all.” Kali answered with more worrying words. Courtney wasn’t impressed by the word choice either.

She snatched the walkie talkie from my hands, and began speaking through it a second later. “Who are you? What do you want with my friend? Also, what’s this about being bait?”

“Oh, hello! My name is,” Kali said something that made my ears numb, and I felt some of my muscles twitch from the sounds she was making. I realized that asking for her name was probably not a very good idea. “But everyone just calls me Kali. I’m on a mission to stop Cade from dying!” She cheered.

Courtney’s eyes shot up to me, and I raised my hands in a gesture for surrender. She frowned, but continued to talk with Kali. “What do you mean? How is Cade dying?”

“Oh, oh I found it.” Instead of answering, Kali’s next words were all the more terrifying. “It’s coming from the east side.”

“Found what?” Courtney interjected, but Kali had already cut out of the conversation. The brown haired girl growled at the walkie talkie before glaring at me. “What is she talking about?”

I froze, not knowing what to do. There was so much I needed to do, but Courtney had sidetracked me. Then an epiphany came over me.

“Snapper, can you go over to the east wing?” I cooed to my hoodie. Courtney was about to say something, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, but her words were caught between a scream as Snapper shuffled down my legs.

I patted the good little monster on its rectangular head, and pointed at the map. “You can feed all you want, but remember to watch out for people.” I chided the thing.

It gave me a squeal of shattering metal and squealing iron. Once more, I patted it.

“What, what the hell is that?!” Courtney screamed as we both watched it bore into a wall and disappear out of sight. I had already tested how intelligent it was, and Snapper could easily follow my directions to the ‘T’. He/She/It was such a good little abomination of nature.

I looked Courtney straight in the eye before saying, “My pet. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go and kill my first pet, so it doesn’t go on a blood filled rampage while draining me of my life.”

“That’s, what, how…” Courtney stammered incoherently as I marched away. I knew what she was going to do; Courtney was always the type to not be satisfied by without knowing everything about whatever caught her attention. I felt kind of scummy for taking advantage of her curiosity this way.

“Cade… You’re going to explain what’s happening later, right?” She growled from behind me.

I nodded demurely.

“Great!” Courtney exclaimed. “Now, what do you need me to do?”

“Can you clear the stadium away from the east wing?”

Courtney pursed her lips in thought. “I think I can use some of my favors with the announcers, but you’ll owe me big afterwards.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” I said as she pulled out her phone and began calling people. She looked my way once more as I sprinted off in the direction of the east wing seats.

My legs felt like lead as I ran, and internally decided that I needed to work out more. My head was filled with thoughts of what could go wrong as I felt something within me lurch. It was like a part of me was getting burned alive, but I could do nothing as more flames were added.

I gasped as another bout of pain wracked my body, and I helplessly clutched my chest in an effort to stave off the pain. Was this what Doldrum was talking about? Was my Reality being consumed already?

My everything hurt as I ran down another pathway, dodging past a few people who were still around. Slowly, the pain that had crippled me earlier was waning off. I gave it no more thought as I focused on running to my destination. I reached the highest point on the east wing seating, and then the intercoms above me buzzed into life.

“Attention, there is currently a bomb threat in the stadium. Would everyone please make a calm and orderly line away from the building until experts come. I repeat, there is currently-”

I paused to wonder how Courtney had even got a big enough favor to call that in. My plan was definitely not that impressive now that I thought of it, but the help from a friend was a bonus. Then I realized that I owed her quite a bit after all this.

Sneaking past disgruntled civilians as they shuffled out of the stadium by huge concrete ramps, I ran up the steps to the top of the nosebleed sections. When I finally got to the top I stopped thinking for a second.

Not because of the rather terrifying height, nor because of my little pet that was happily causing a structural failure below me. It was the sight of something large headed towards the stadium.

I hadn’t thought that it would travel in any way other than the ground due to how large it was before. I never had a problem with being wrong up until now.

Cacophonous wing beats blasted the air, as I felt the fifteen pairs of massive scaled and leather wings crash through the open air. I could barely see its humongous body from here, but I could see that it was completely red. Scales of impossible size layered over its body as ten, pillar-like limbs swung freely below.

I knew there had to be razor sharp talons at the end of each toe. I knew that there would be a gigantic serpentine neck that rose up to an arrow shaped head full of needle like teeth. Five tails, akin to sharp whips, would be following it from its backside. And I knew that it would have ten sets of eyes, each with slit pupils.

It would be hungry, I knew.

I knew all of it because I had dreamed it up.

My dragon was coming, and I would have to slay it or the world would burn.